


die but once

by againstmygreeleaf



Series: flash in the pan [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Major Character Injury, Major Illness, Panic Attacks, Sickfic, Temporary Character Death, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Vomiting, Whump, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/againstmygreeleaf/pseuds/againstmygreeleaf
Summary: There's no art to being armor. It's more of a discordant knee jerk of an instinct.Four times Hunk takes one for his team, one time he takes one for the cause. Essentially a collection of gratuitous, self-indulgent Hunk whump.





	1. for the fire

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, that title is from the Empire episode, lol. Hopefully this isn't too badly written but I can't promise anything. Honestly if adequate Hunk whump existed, I wouldn't have written this at all. I get nervous about posting things and this an intimidating fandom. But I'll have to deal with it because there's barely Hunk whump?? 
> 
> Even though he's a literal sunflower it seems like so few people hurt him? Aren't you supposed to hurt the sunny ones? Plus, the Yellow Lion's nature seems like it just kind of lends its paladin to whump...Well anyway, lack of Hunk whump is how we got here. Still figuring out how to write Voltron but here's my first attempt!

The planet they’re scoping out for potential resources is supposed to be safe. The Galra haven’t conquered it. In fact, it isn’t occupied by anything humanoid in either shape or cognition. All the resident lifeforms are animalistic and operating on instinct, not agenda. Allura assured them none were inherently aggressive and as long as they were left alone, they wouldn’t bother the paladins.

She directs them to split up to cover more ground. There’s no reason not to. It’s so safe, after all. Hunk makes it a priority to catalogue all the edible plants. Yeah, food goo has grown on him but he needs more variety in his cuisine. Even if they can’t gather too much at a time, he can still reference the plants to their descriptions in the database and save their locations.

A venture which is going really well until this deep, guttural caterwaul rumbles in the air far too close for comfort. Not a second later, a startled yell echoes it and Hunk recognizes that yell, shit—

“Keith!” He races off in the direction of the fracas as fast as his legs will carry him.

The landscape is bumpy. Knolls and dips and thick, bristly violet grass. It isn’t ideal terrain for running and Hunk nearly trips twice before he finds Keith. The red paladin is essentially cornered by one of this planet’s larger inhabitants. They’re on a hill but he probably can’t run down for the risk of turning his back on the creature.

The massive alien glowers at him with eight lime green eyes. Its body is amphibian like, sleek and streamlined. A spiny dorsal stripe runs along its back. A webbed crest surrounds its unusual head, resembling a broad wolfish shape until the jaw. The jaw is a terrifying thing that hangs so low it seems to dislocate, lined with rows of crooked teeth.

Keith’s hands are up in defense, empty. Hunk sees his bayard lying out of reach and his helmet even farther. A much smaller and somewhat rounder version of the alien beast advancing on him is batting it back and fourth like a toy. Distantly, Hunk thinks he can piece together what happened.

“Hey!” He whistles to get the creature’s attention. “Hey you, scary mama alien! Over here!”

Its head briefly swerves to Hunk, slitted nostrils flaring. But the moment Keith takes just a retreating step, it swings back to him with a furious rattle of a hiss.

A barbed, black tongue lashes out like a whip. Keith’s gasp hits Hunk’s gut with a pang. Before he knows it he’s practically running on instinct, protectively throwing himself over the red paladin. He wraps a hand around the back of his neck mid-roll, then quickly moves the other over the base of his skull, mindful to support his head. It’s especially vulnerable without the helmet.

Colors blur past as they continue rapidly rolling, nearly bouncing down the hill. Hunk can’t tell if the alien is following or not. He doesn’t hear it anymore. A steeper slope sends them airborne and the next thing Hunk knows, he’s on his back.

Keith is on top of him, fixing him with a saucer-eyed stare. Hunk’s hands are still protectively cupped around his head. He slides them down.

“You okay?” Hunk croaks, brow raised.

“Yeah…Thanks.” Keith blinks a couple times, seemingly bewildered. He climbs off of Hunk and stands, holding a hand out to help him up.

Hunk gratefully takes it and climbs to his feet. He’s still catching his breath when Keith does a double take. Jolting like he got stung by a wasp, Keith gapes in open alarm.

“You’re bleeding! Hunk— your back!”

“What?”

Dubiously, Hunk reaches to his back. His hand comes away glistening red. He stares at it for a long moment, the only thing distinct as everything else in his vision dims to a shimmering gray. The pain doesn’t sink it at first.

For a few heartbeats, he’s completely numb. Then the pain strikes in a sudden, searing maelstrom. It feels like a scream on the lip of every nerve, sizzling hot agony. It’s too much. Hunk topples over, black intruding his vision.

* * *

“…nk? Hunk, you with me?”

Hunk groans in response. He’s on his stomach, back still a mire of pain. He hazily shifts his gaze up to Keith, who’s kneeled beside him. It sounds like a frown in his voice but Hunk can’t see his face.

“Try not to faint anymore. You’re still bleeding.” His palms press firm against a wound Hunk regrettably feels now.

He hisses between his teeth. “It got me bad, didn’t it?”

“Pretty bad,” Keith answers bluntly. “It’s not just the cuts, there must’ve been something in its saliva. It melted through the armor. Your skin’s all blistered up and raw.”

“Hurts like it’s raw,” Hunk gripes and bites the inside of his cheeks to suppress a moan.

Keith goes quiet, continuing to apply pressure. It almost feels like he’s trying to snap his spine. Hunk clenches his fists into the weird, violet grass and realizes he’s holding his breath. He puffs it out slow and inhales through his nostrils. He can feel where his flesh is blistered around the wound, the nearly caustic bite of the mild breeze against open meat. The wound itself pulses with a different kind of pain, a long stretch of stinging from the middle of his back up to his shoulder.

“Say something,” he pleads. “Anything. Distract me.”

“Thanks again,” Keith says softly. “For what you did. It was aiming for me.”

“Yeah,” Hunk snorts. “What exactly did you do to piss that thing off so bad?”

“Walked right into its nest,” Keith admits with a burdened sigh. “I didn’t realize it at first. Or that its offspring was…well, that. A baby.”

“Did you try to pet it or something?” Hunk jokes.

Keith is silent.

“…Oh my god. You really tried to pet that scary looking thing.”

“Hey,” Keith retorts. “You were the one on your hands and knees baby-talking to the Balmera and kissing it.”

“That’s different. First of all, the Balmera wasn’t scary. Second, the Ba— AH! Keith!” A blister bursts when the red paladin shifts his hands. It unleashes a corrosive bolt through Hunk’s back. He can feel fluid gush out and wash sickly warm and agitative over more raw flesh. His stomach lurches at the thought.

“I’m sorry! I know that had to hurt but you’re still bleeding. Just don’t pass out again, okay?”

“I know.” Hunk inhales slowly. “Is anyone coming?”

“I don’t have my helmet, remember?”

“Right. I’ll try.” He brings a hand to the comms button and presses. “Lance?”

They’d flown down in Blue. Much of this planet was oceanic so she had been the lion most suited.

“Yeah?” His reply is quick, uncharacteristically serious. He must’ve picked up on Hunk’s tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Hunk needs to get to a pod, now,” Keith loudly cuts in, urgent and audibly frazzled. “He’s bleeding a lot and he’s got like, chemical burns!”

Another blister pops as Keith moves his hands again and Hunk can’t bite back a yelp that evidently frightens Lance from the sound of his gasp catching over the comms.

“I’m okay,” he tries to reassure them through gritted teeth. “Nope, not okay, really…this sucks. But I’m not dying.”

“I’m coming,” Lance says immediately, breathy and fast like he’s running. “I’ll get your location when I hop into Blue.”

“What happened?” Pidge’s voice crackles over.

“Alien tongue,” Hunk grunts. He’s starting to feel dizzy, less alert in spite of the pain.

“Describe the creature,” Shiro instructs over the comms, his tone concerned but steady. “It will probably help Coran calibrate the pod if he knows what attacked you.”

“Right.” Hunk blinks, trying to clear the spots of gray from his vision. “First off, it was huge’n scary looking, and…Its tongue was spiky…”

He’s having trouble focusing. His thoughts feel like they’re swirling in some kind of murky blender and he can’t pull the right one out.

“Keep going,” Shiro encourages. Does he sound more urgent?

“Lotta eyes…Creepy mouth…”

“Don’t pass out!” Now Keith definitely sounds urgent. A pinching sensation distinguishes itself among the rest of the pain in his back and Hunk grunts tiredly at it before a tide of black overcomes him.

* * *

Hunk is in and out on his way to the pod. He’s aware of blazes of pain, and Lance gently shushing him when a whimper escapes. At some point he gets another look at Keith’s face, stricken and pale. Shiro says something at another point, his voice mellow and soothing even though the words themselves don’t really register. Coran’s mustache twitches and then things are cold.

When Hunk truly wakes up, he stumbles out of the pod and directly into Lance’s arms. Lance hugs him tightly and then Pidge joins the party on his other side, her arms giving his torso an impressive squeeze despite their short length.

“We missed you!” she exclaims.

Lance is oddly the quieter one, nestling his face into Hunk’s shoulder and sighing deeply in relief.

“Well, hey,” he greets, gently hugging them back. “How long was I out?”

“About three days,” Shiro informs him, resting his flesh hand on the shoulder Lance’s face isn’t occupying. “How do you feel?”

“Kinda wobbly,” Hunk admits. “Good thing these two are holding me up.”

He ruffles his hands through both Lance’s and Pidge’s hair and glances around the castle. Keith’s standing a little ways off, arms folded and gaze watchful. Allura’s closer, smiling softly. She waves when she catches him looking.

“It’s normal to feel a little shaky when you emerge from the pod,” she tells him.

“Right.” He nods.

“You’re as good as new though.” Coran claps his hands together. “Health wise, not cosmetically. Expect some scarring on your back. It almost certainly isn’t extensive.”

“What?” Lance finally lets go of Hunk and whips around. “I didn’t get scars!”

“Your more severe injuries were exclusively internal,” Coran explains.

“Aww.” Lance deflates. “No fair. I bet alien chicks dig battle scars. Hey Shiro, did you keep any scars from your glowing alien wound?”

“Yes, and no, you can’t see them.” Shiro pats Hunk’s shoulder and trains his attention on him while Lance groans in dismay. “Are you ready to eat?”

“Yeah,” Hunk says, deciding to save caring about whatever his back looked like for later. He casts a quick glance back to Keith as Pidge starts tugging him to the table. Quiet was normal for Keith, yeah, but he hadn’t said anything at all. Not a single word.

Keith remains silent while they eat together. Everybody else makes up for it, telling him what he missed. Pidge wants his help with her latest project on Green, hoping to boost her lion’s offensive capabilities. Allura chimes in to tell her that she can manage that by deepening her bond with her lion even better than she could do it through mechanical intervention. PIdge points out that the cloaking device was a success and claims Green likes it when Pidge enhances her and has more respect for her paladin for it, therefore deepening their bond. That launches Lance into bragging about how strong his own bond with Blue has gotten. Keith doesn’t dole out even one snarky comment.

When Hunk finishes his goo, he clears his throat. “I’m gonna go change. I’m still feeling kinda off so, Keith can you walk with me?”

“Whoa! Betrayal, much?” Lance looks scandalized.

“No,” Shiro breaks in calmly. “You have to stay. It’s your turn to clean up.”

Hunk has a feeling Shiro knows what’s up. Lance grumbles but agreeably gets up and pushes his chair in, going around to take the bowls. Keith gives a nod and of assent, getting up when Hunk does.

Hunk doesn’t say anything until they’re down the corridor and everybody else’s chatter fades away.

“Are you mad at me?”

“What?” Keith's brows jump, disappearing under his bangs. 

“Seems like you’re more avoidant than usual,” Hunk says quietly. “And I mean, I get if you’re mad. You told me not to pass out and I did. I don’t feel like I could entirely help that though, so I was hoping you’d give me a pass.”

“I’m not mad at you for fainting from your injuries,” Keith barks hotly, rubbing a hand over his face. “That’d be stupid!”

“Okay…So why are you mad at me?” Hunk frowns.

“I’m not, okay?” Keith gives him a guilty look and bites his lip. “I’m mad at myself. It’s my fault you got hurt and—“

“Nope.” Hunk puts a hand over his mouth. “Nuh-uh. Don’t do that, the alien hit me with its spiky tongue thing, not you. You don’t even have a spiky tongue thing to hit me with…or do you, now that you’re Galra?”

Keith indignantly pushes his hand away and gives him an exasperated look. “When have we ever met a Galra with a prehensile tongue?”

“We haven’t yet but I mean, it could totally be a thing. Speaking from experience, prehensile tongues make pretty good weapons.”

Keith balks, that guilty look instantly back. Crap, that was the opposite of what Hunk was trying to do.

“But it doesn’t hurt anymore, so it’s fine,” he goes on. “Don’t feel bad, okay? I’m glad I protected you and I’d totally do it again. I mean, you didn’t have your helmet and since you were facing it, its tongue probably would’ve hit your chest or even your neck. You could’ve been hurt a lot worse than I was. Taking the hit made sense.”

Hunk had been running more on instinct than logic when it happened, but appealing to practicality might be the way to get through here. Keith is instinctual for sure, hell that’s one of the reasons he’s the red paladin. But he’s mostly a realist when it comes to strategizing, save for when the heat of the moment spurs him into running wild.

“For a minute I thought you might die,” Keith says quietly. “There was a lot of blood.”

“I really don’t like blood so you can leave it at that,” Hunk says, both because it’s the truth and because apparently Keith has been thinking about this too much for his own good. At this point they’ve reached his room. The doors slide open and Hunk steps in. Keith hesitates like he isn’t sure if he should come in or not, so Hunk takes the initiative and tugs him over the threshold.

He pulls the smaller paladin into a hug that takes him off the ground. Keith grunts in surprise but doesn’t fight the sudden affection. He even returns the hug when Hunk puts him down, and that’s not unheard of but it’s certainly not typical either. Hunk gives him a good squeeze and then he lets go, pleased to see Keith is visibly more relaxed.

“Since we’re cool, could you do me a favor?” Hunk asks next, tapping his fingers together.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I don’t feel like looking around for a mirror, so can you tell me what the scar’s like?”

“Okay.”

Hunk turns around and peels the upper half of the under-suit off. He glances back over his shoulder. “Well?”

“There’s a faint slash here,” Keith murmurs and skims the spot in question with his fingertips, around the center of Hunk’s back below his shoulder blades. Hunk hadn’t expected the touch but he doesn’t mind in the least. Hey, that’s actually probably good for Keith, the tactile reassurance. To be feeling the healed skin in place of the blistery and bleeding meat that was under his hands last.

“And here it’s almost like a pattern.” Keith moves his hand to the left. “Like a honeycomb or a Petoskey stone. It’s not as smooth as the slash.”

“Good to know.” Hunk can feel how the flesh is puckered where Keith is touching. He can’t say he’s happy about the blemishes but when you’re fighting a space war, scars are probably par for the course. Even if he didn’t get this one in battle. In any case, it could’ve been worse. So much worse. “On a scale of one to ten, how jealous do you think Lance is going to be? They are cool enough to make him jealous, right?”

“Definitely,” Keith assures as he drops his hand. “On the scale…probably a seven.”

“Then I’ll be nice,” decides Hunk. “I’ll only use it against him when he’s being annoying.”

“He’s always annoying,” Keith mutters.

“You’re just cranky because you don’t want to admit you’re jealous too.” Hunk gives him a teasing nudge.

“I am not!”

“Don’t worry, Keith, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get your own cool scar. I wonder if your skin would heal purple now that you’re Galra.”

“Ugh! I didn’t just— !” Keith’s fingers curl up and he makes frustrated gestures before he grumbles and walks out.

“Thanks,” Hunk calls after him, voice cheery.

That settles it, Keith’s definitely okay. Good. That was the goal.

Both times.


	2. for the brains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TransGirl!Pidge headcanons ahead. So many thoughts about that possibility, man. Also some non-explicit nudity underway.

“What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?” Pidge asks as they trudge through what’s probably some kind of snow.

It’s frozen like snow but it’s also pale orange and its texture is much foamier.

“Anything that we can’t see from above,” Shiro instructs over the comms. “Prints or anything suspicious.”

“Copy that,” Pidge mutters.

“You don’t wanna be out here either?” Hunk guesses.

“No,” Pidge says, wrapping her arms around herself and futilely rubbing up and down them. “It’s cold. I thought our suits were supposed to protect us from extreme conditions.”

“They usually do,” Hunk says. “Lance and I went way under water on that planet with the garden monster thing, and we were good the whole time. Not to mention there’s all the times we’ve floated right out in the vacuum of space.”

“Maybe it’s something about this substance?” Pidge suggests, picking up some of the cold orangish foam. “Or the atmosphere here? It is interesting…”

“One of the first places we’ve been to that we can’t breathe the air,” Hunk points out.

“But Allura can.” Pidge hums thoughtfully and drops the snow. “What do you think Allura is?”

“Uh…she’s Altean?” Hunk pauses briefly to toss Pidge a look.

They’re on some planet that he really can’t pronounce the name of, summoned by a distress signal. The people of this place are predominantly feathered and stand only about half as tall as Pidge with glittery, bulbous eyes on stalks. There are some distinguishing secondary sexual characteristics. Males have six limbs, the females four, and their carapace colorings are determined by sex. The females’ range on the cool color spectrum and the males’ are all brown.

Some of them have gone missing and the disappearances are a continuing phenomena. The leaders of the village fear they’re being abducted by Galra or otherwise, but don’t possess the technology that would enable them to search on their own in the turbulent weather conditions they’ve been experiencing.

“No, not that like that.” Pidge flaps her hand. “I mean…Do you think Alteans are mammals?”

Hunk considers. “Probably, right? Allura has boobs.”

Pidge gives a dry snort.

“Hunk,” Shiro warns over the comms, only just audible over Lance’s cackling.

“It’s a mammalian attribute,” Hunk defends. “Okay, maybe I should’ve said mammaries, but still.”

Lance still snickers loud enough to be heard over the comms. Shiro just sighs.

“Focus on the mission please. You guys can ask her and Coran if they’re familiar with our concept of mammals when we get back to the castle.”

“Will do,” Pidge answers.

For awhile they walk in silence, both scanning for lifeforms and neither picking up anything. After awhile the landscape begins to change. It’s still covered in (and storming with) cold foam, but now there’s vertical vegetation scattered about. Trees of another form.

“They’re shaped like curly fries,” Hunk hums wistfully as they walk past one, his tongue taunted with the phantom of crispy textures and salty tangs.

“I miss those,” says Pidge. “Especially the ones you made. With the cracked pepper and parmesan.”

“I thought you liked those.” Hunk smiles. “I’ll try to make you something similar if we ever get back to the Space Mall. There was something at Vrepit Sal’s that smelled like a potato.”

Pidge tips her head. “Smelled like? Did it look anything like a potato?”

“No,” Hunk answers. “It was square and kinda blue.”

“Space is pretty weird,” Pidge says, not for the first time. They’ve just passed the last of the visible just-as-weird space trees. The ground feels smoother somehow, but it’s impossible to tell what it looks like under all the foam.

Then there’s a loud, sudden crack. They exchange looks.

Hunk scans for lifeforms again, finds nothing, and makes a face. Pidge just shrugs, so they resume their course.

A few minutes later and there’s another crack, this one sharper and lasting a few heartbeats longer.

Pidge frowns and taps her gauntlet, bringing up a holo map. She studies it for a moment and Hunk watches her spine stiffen, knowing something is wrong even before her breath catches.

“Oh,” she says, voice watery and small. She raises her head, her spooked eyes are as wide as moons.

Another loud, continuous crack interrupts before he can ask and this time the noise doesn’t end, it just keeps gets louder, and few other variations of it join in to create a glasslike symphony of cracking.

“We’re standing on thin ice!” Pidge shrieks over the sound.

She’s terrified and Hunk should be, and the cracking is nearly deafening. The sheer terror in the look Pidge is giving him just flips the switch, instinct turned on. Hunk picks her up and throws her as hard as he can. She lets out a squawk of surprise, his throw sending her flying. Naturally. Pidge is so tiny he could put her in his pocket and he’s pretty sure he could even give Shiro a decent toss if he tried.

She hits solid ground with a pained yelp. Definitely solid, she’s just in front of that curly fry tree. Hunk takes a step in that direction and the apology he calls out doesn’t make it over the loudest cacophonous crack of them all, the one that sends him under.

The cold is immediate. It assaults him through his armor, shocking him to the core. Hunk gasps and chokes on what’s not frigid water, can’t be water, it’s orange and thick as custard. He’s already sinking, struggling numbly against a crushing pressure and a cold so deep it cuts him to the quick.

He attempts to activate his jetpack and that’s a bust. Was it low on fuel? Is that why he didn’t think to use it before?

No. He hadn’t been thinking at all. Pidge was terrified and getting her away from the thing that was terrifying had simply been reflexive.

Now his own terror finally sinks in. Hunk can’t breathe. The cold is beyond glacial, biting into him with the fangs of tundras and injecting him with gelid venom. He tries to kick himself up but he can barely feel his legs and the liquid sucks him down impossibly fast. Animal panic takes over when his vision begins to dim.

Suddenly something else cuts through the liquid, something neon green. Hunk grabs for it and clings, desperate. He recognizes it somewhere but his panic’s too blind for thought. A faint tingle goes through his fingers when he makes contact, a weak feeling but a feeling nonetheless.

Miraculously, the green tether is bringing him up, increment by increment. Hunk loses the fight to help it, unable to do anything but strain to keep his grip on the green blade. His lungs feel like they’re shriveling inside his chest. His vision’s swimming and the cold burns somehow.

Hunk is two seconds away from losing his grip when he’s hauled onto a slanted, jagged surface of ice. He coughs up a couple lungfuls of the thick fluid and battles for breath, panting heavily between chattering teeth.

“Hunk!” Pidge drops what his mind clears enough to recognize as her bayard. She made a pulley around the curly fry tree. Even with the leverage it had to be hell on her back. He’s aware that he's gotta be near thrice her weight.

She runs over and this is what he’s thinking of, in between impressed and apologetic. He can’t get out either praise or an apology when she drops beside him though. His teeth are chattering too hard and he feels like he’s frozen.

“Hunk?” She takes his helmet off and more of that liquid gushes down. She puts her hand to his cheek and he barely feels it.

“Shiro’s coming,” she says. “It’s going to be okay.”

Hunk shivers uncontrollably, trying and failing to muster up his voice. His teeth are still chattering. Pidge bites her lip and puts his helmet back on.

“So much for our suit’s insulation, huh?”

Hunk coughs and draws in a breath so deep it throbs. He’s unspeakably cold. He isn’t sure if it was the exertion of struggling against the liquid or if it’s just the raw cold sapping away his strength, but he’s beginning to feel sleepy.

Pidge pats his face, her touch as nervous as her voice. “Hang in there.”

“You’re strong,” he compliments hazily, a tad muddled on why he wanted to but knowing he did all the same.

“Excuse me, _you’re_ strong,” she corrects. “You could play shot put with me as your shot. Or we could go bowling and I’ll be the ball.”

Hunk startles, realization stinging him as sharp as the ice that’s stolen every molecule of him.

“Sorry,” he gasps. “M’sorry.”

“What?” Pidge’s nose crinkles and worry creases her forehead.

“I hurt you,” Hunk laments, that cry she made when she hit the ground echoing through his foggy mind. He threw her far, far enough to hurt.

“You totally saved my butt, you mean.” Pidge scoffs. “My now sore butt, okay, but it’s a heck of a lot better than a frozen butt.”

Hunk finds relief in that. He can’t vocalize it though, can’t lock onto the right words. He’s stopped shivering but confusion is clouding his head up. Pidge says something maybe, her stare is expectant and alight with apprehension.

Hunk feels like he slips out for a minute or two, possibly. He can’t trace the timeline when the Black Lion lands and when Shiro shows up, grim-faced and clearly worried. Hunk blinks dizzily and loses another short stretch of time, finding Shiro under his arm. The older paladin is trying to get him upright and he puts in a clumsy effort to help.

“How you doing, Hunk?” he asks.

“Warmer,” mumbles Hunk. Somehow all that glacial cold just melted right out of him. He isn’t sure if that’s good or bad. It’s not as uncomfortable but it seems like it could be bad. Has he heard that somewhere before?

Pidge makes a noise that sounds like she thinks it’s bad. Shiro tells him to stay alert and practically drags him into the cockpit of the Black Lion, mostly by himself though Pidge helps a bit. It’s much warmer inside, nearly humid in fact. Shiro carefully eases Hunk to the floor and the next thing he knows, both of them are taking his armor off.

“Why?” Hunk thinks he asks, but neither of them answer so maybe he didn’t.

“Be very gentle with him,” Shiro warns.

“I know that!” she snaps, voice shrill like she’s scared. “I took the Garrison first aid course more recently than you did!” Yeah, definitely scared. She’s extra snappy when she’s scared.

“D’n’t yell at him,” Hunk tells her. “S’okay.”

Pidge blinks, sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “Sorry,” she tells Shiro quickly.

Shiro is more focused on cutting away Hunk’s under-suit. Hunk is dimly aware of being naked but he’s more confused than embarrassed, really. Not to say he isn’t embarrassed at all. It’s just plain bizarre all around.

“S’up with this?” he questions hazily.

“The substance in the lake got through to your insulation,” Shiro tells him as he passes a folded foil blanket to Pidge. “You’re really cold but we’re going to take care of you, just relax.”

“Don’t feel cold,” Hunk mutters, not sure if he’s arguing or not. He would prefer not to be naked.

“Can you handle it from here, Pidge? I’m going to get us out of here.”

“Yeah,” she tells Shiro, leaning over to unfold the foil blanket over Hunk before she straightens up again. Shiro gives her a nod and ducks into his chair.

To Hunk’s great surprise, she starts undressing herself too. She shucks her armor off piece by piece, gruff and irritable like she’s on a time limit. She yanks her under-suit off and kicks it aside, left only in her sports bra and boxers. The boxers have little green alien heads and spaceships on them and that’s so Pidge, Hunk can’t help smiling. They don’t stay on for long though.

She pulls her bra over her head and tosses it aside, tugs her boxers down her hips and then kicks those away too. She gets down and worms herself under the blanket beside Hunk, pressing close to his side. She nestles her face against his shoulder and wraps an arm around his middle, drapes a thin leg over his.

He’s not opposed to this exactly, just baffled all around. “Wha’cha doing?”

“Warming you up,” she sighs. Then, to Shiro, “He’s way too cold!”

“I’m getting us to the castle,” the older paladin assures her. “He’s going to be fine, you’re doing great.”

There is something bothering Hunk about this though. It’s not snuggling with Pidge, that’s totally cool, he’s always up for cuddling with his friends. Okay, maybe the nudity part is a little, or like a lot, awkward. But that’s not what’s bothering him either. It’s something else, it’s this important detail he’s missing, something intrinsic nagging at him.

Then it hits. Dysphoria. Pidge had confided in him about that, or at least, how it had reared its ugly head when she’d been playing out her male alias. She’d also referenced it when he helped her develop a suitable space serum equivalent to her hormone inhibitors. She never elaborated much more than that, but was it going to grapple with her now? Was it going to roar again with her body exposed like this?

“Pidge?”

“Yeah?” she asks warily, her breath fanning warm over his skin.

“Y’okay?”

“You so don’t need to be worrying about me right now.” She gives his stomach a gentle pat.

“But…” Hunk frowns, failing again to fish out what he intended to ask. Focusing is difficult and he’s incredibly exhausted, which isn’t helping. Nonetheless, this is important. He needs to check on her, make sure she’s alright.

“I’m okay,” she promises without the further input he intended. “I’m right where you need me to be and I’m okay.”

She sounds fretful but sincere. Hunk takes it as permission to fall asleep.

* * *

Hunk is aware of landing, somewhat. Pidge moving away. Allura taking him from Shiro and carrying him with panic eating up her face. Then the black resumes.

When Hunk really wakes up later, he feels better. His head is clearer. He’s more alert. He takes stock of his surroundings. He’s on a bed in the castle infirmary with two other beds moved flush to either side of his. Pidge is wrapped around him again, stuck like a barnacle on a whale and very naked. Lance is on his other side, equally naked and holding fast. There are at least five blankets tucked around them, possibly six.

“Wow,” Hunk remarks, mildly flabbergasted.

“There you are,” Lance admonishes. He picks his head up and gives Hunk a stern look with eyes that seem just a bit too wet. “Way to scare the hell out of us. Especially Allura and Coran.”

“We never had anything like hypothermia on Altea,” Allura announces, not even denying it. She starts pacing at the foot of the beds and he gets the feeling it’s not the first time she’s done that tonight. “What a terrifying condition!”

“I wanted to put you in the pod,” Coran says with a nervous laugh. “It looks like I have a lot more to learn about your anatomy. That would’ve killed you!”

Hunk winces. “Could’ve gone without hearing that, Coran.”

Pidge shifts beside him and seems to burrow in just a bit closer. Hunk puts his arm around her shoulders.

“Still okay, Pidge?” he asks carefully.

“Better now that you’re coherent,” she breathes, relief evident in her voice. “Welcome back.”

“How do you feel?” Shiro asks. He's seated next to Keith against the wall.

“Tired,” Hunk admits. “How did the rest of the mission go? Did you guys find those missing aliens?”

“They weren’t missing,” Keith declares, sounding annoyed. “That was a big waste of our time and you and Pidge almost died for nothing.”

“What?” Hunk puzzles.

“The Nersicyuns are a very traditional and religious people. Some of their customs are highly restrictive and their society is a rigid one,” Allura explains. “They’re the same as they were ten thousand years ago. Those who were supposedly missing had simply left in secret so they could live more freely.”

“Waste of time,” Keith repeats, the words hissed through his teeth.

“Oh.” Hunk sighs out. Sometimes space wasn’t as unfamiliar as it seemed.

“As diplomats it’s our responsibility to respond to distress signals,” Coran tuts. “Sometimes they turn out to be false alarms but usually they don’t.” He lifts a pitcher off of the floating tray and pours a steaming liquid into a cup, reaching over Pidge to offer it to Hunk. “If you’re feeling up to it, this may help warm you.”

Hunk moves the arm Lance is curled under to prop himself on his elbow, noticing only then that he’s hooked up to an IV, He likewise lets go of Pidge to take the drink. “Thanks.”

Lance adjusts and uses Hunk’s chest as a pillow. “You’re breathing better,” he notes thoughtfully, concern glinting in his eyes. “You still look pretty gray though…”

“I don’t feel too bad,” Hunk reassures him, bringing the cup to his lips and noticing something else he didn’t before. He has a scarf. Worn, red fleece. Well, at least he’s wearing something…

“Is that uncomfortable?” Keith asks after Hunk’s spent a moment looking at it.

“Huh?" He blinks, following Keith's gaze. "Oh, no. Is it yours?”

Keith nods.

“Well, thanks.” Hunk gives him a smile and then takes a tentative sip of the drink. It’s nearly hot enough to burn his tongue and it tastes floral somehow, sweet but not sickeningly so. There’s a hint of spice too. He takes another sip and tries not to think about how awkward this is, sandwiched nude between Pidge and Lance with everybody else just hanging around.

They’d probably all seen his junk. It’s pretty weird able to well, _feel_ Lance and Pidge like that too, though he wholeheartedly appreciates (and certainly needs) the body heat right now. He’s very conscious of them and everything they’ve got, and their skin against his. It’s not bad, really, but it’s delicate. He definitely didn’t expect to have this kind of intimacy when he woke up this morning.

But if Pidge can handle it, then Hunk certainly can.

“How long was I out?”

“A few vargas,” Allura says. “I was only here for mere ticks before you woke up. I had to settle that matter with the Nersicyuns. To respect the wishes of those who disaffiliated, I didn’t divulge their location to the leaders. However, I did inform them that those who’d left had done so willingly and were unharmed.”

“How’d that go?” Hunk raises a brow.

“Poorly.” Allura sighs and then shakes herself. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re safe and your temperature’s working its way back up.”

“Thanks for throwing me,” Pidge says quietly. “As weird as that sounds. If I fell in…”

“Hey, you got me out.” Hunk flashes her a smile. “We’re totally even.”

She smiles back and stretches her head up to rest her chin on the blanket stack. She’s partly on top of him now and so is Lance.

“So uh, how long do we keep cuddling for?” he asks casually.

“Until you’re all warmed up,” Lance rubs his cheek against the scarf. “And you’re still pretty chilly so get comfortable.”

“That might not be entirely necessary,” Coran starts, skimming over Hunk’s scans with a faltering confidence. “Or perhaps it is? Forgive me, I’m still making sense of this condition. Just stay where you are to be safe.”

“No prob, I am a cuddle machine,” Hunk says. Sure it’s a lot weirder when everyone is naked, but hey, it’s helping him recover and it doesn’t seem like he has to worry about Pidge. “Anyone else wanna join in? I know you want to cuddle, Keith.”

“I’ll pass,” declines the red paladin, a smile making its way to his lips even so.

“You look like you’ve got your hands full already,” Shiro says lightly.

“I guess I do.” Hunk exhales softly in contentment and takes another slow sip of the hot drink, feeling much less disturbed than he might’ve felt about nearly freezing while he's in between two of his favorite people. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hunk's got them guns. Seriously, that boy's arms. Pay me in screenshots of them.


	3. for the glue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Keith whump in this one too. And touches on the insecurity Lance expressed in S2E10.

The cyro-pods are meant to heal injuries and preserve lifeforms in stasis. They're useless against illnesses and while that was both interesting and unfortunate to know, it was never very important. It seems a lot more important now. It seems a lot like something they should've accommodated now. 

Keith is ill. Very ill.

It’s hard to tell how sudden it actually came on since he’s such a stoic loner but he spent yesterday coughing and at dinner he took a spill out of the chair and didn’t get back up. However long he’d been feeling it, once it got bad, it got _bad_.

His fever’s teetering on the edge of the danger zone and he’s got a double ear infection. His coughing fits are relentless and rattling, sounding worse every time. His stomach keeps finding things to throw up even though nobody could get him to eat anything. Between that and the fever he’s on his way to dehydration. Shiro hasn’t left his side but he’s worn out so tonight they’re taking turns watching him. Shiro still won’t leave the infirmary, but he’s taking a break to doze a couple beds over.

Hunk has the first watch of the night. Keith is fitful and disquieted, too delirious to swallow his little animal noises of pain. Hunk brushes the back of his fingers against his flaming cheek.

“Hey, is it your earache? Do you want me to go refill your hot water bottles?”

Keith squints at him with glazed eyes, trying to be aggravated but too miserable to look anything other than. “You’re gonna catch it…”

“No I’m not,” Hunk murmurs. “I can’t, remember?”

It’s an exclusively Galra pathogen, Coran confirmed that much. Now it was just a matter of narrowing down which one so they could get a remedy. There’s a possibility the way the symptoms are manifesting in Keith is atypical given his hybridity. 

Keith makes another quiet, pained noise and washes awfully pale. He suddenly seems to panic, struggling to push himself up. Hunk recognizes the feeling he’s unfortunately too familiar with in the way Keith looks and quickly helps him, stamping on the pedal of the trash can in unison. Keith leans over the bed and vomits up another torrent of bile into it.

Hunk winces at the splash and his own stomach churns. Keith spits into it weakly and Hunk lets the lid snap closed as he helps him settle back. Shiro had stockpiled napkins on the side table in preparation. Hunk takes one and gently wipes his mouth off, all the more worried in the afterthought that Keith allows him do so without protest. He’s pallid as a lump of dough under the fierce flush of fever. Hunk's heart aches just looking at him. 

“It’s cold,” he says weakly, almost pleading. “Why’s it so cold in here?”

“Just you, man,” Hunk murmurs sympathetically. “You’ve got a temperature from hell.”

Keith sighs out like a finality, seemingly too spent to say anymore as he hugs himself and shivers.

Hunk shrugs his bathrobe off and drapes it over him. It doesn’t seem to help any, but Keith clings to it like he does the other blankets. Then he starts coughing again. It’s violent and chesty, the matter in his lungs wetly crackling as the coughs storm out of him. It seems like the fit goes on forever. Keith’s helpless to it, coughing and coughing and barely able to wheeze any breath in between. It’s frightening to witness. Hunk swallows and helps him sit, hoping it might help curb the spasm.

Shiro wakes at the noise and hurries over even before he’s through blinking away the nap. He strokes Keith’s hair back from his face while Hunk rubs circles into the small of his back. They share worried looks but eventually the fit works itself out.

“Water?” Hunk asks.

Keith shakes his head and limply sinks to the bedding.

“You need fluids,” Shiro says.

Keith mumbles some kind of dissent and rolls over. He squeezes his eyes closed and buries his face into the pillow. Shiro doesn’t push. He sweeps his natural hand through Keith’s sweaty hair and gives Hunk a weary look.

“You can go back to bed. I’m up, I’ll stay with him.”

“I’m good here. I’ll grab you a chair though.” Hunk gets up and crosses the infirmary to take one. Keith’s whimpering starts up again, hurt and feeble. He brings the chair to Shiro and plops back in his own.

Keith shifts and worms an arm out of the blankets to rub at his ear. Shiro gasps and then Hunk notices too. There’s the start of a rash crawling up his forearm. It’s bumpy and splotchy, mostly an inflamed kind of red. Mostly. The little bumps themselves are purple. That Galra purple everybody’s teased him about turning at some point or another.

“Get Coran,” Shiro tells him.

“Yeah.” Hunk leaves sprinting.

* * *

There is some good news and some bad news. Good news is, they know what Keith has. Bad news is that it’s potentially fatal if untreated as far as full-bloodied Galra go. More bad news is, the aquatic plant necessary to mix the cure grows in the marshes of a planet a few galaxies away.

The extra good news is that the description of said planet sounds like the safe pharmaceutical equivalent of the Space Mall. A nice, relaxed Space Pharmacy.

The extra bad news is that the idealized Space Pharmacy is outdated information.

 _Way_ outdated information, Hunk and Lance quickly realize when sentries nearly shoot them out of the sky.

Hunk should’ve figured a mission to a chill Space Pharmacy was too good to be true. Especially when his track record was; Galra occupied planet to get Yellow, Galra occupied planet-animal to get the crystal, Weblum’s stomach to get the scaultrite. He got the worst missions, honestly.

Lance accelerates Blue’s speed, so startled that he doesn’t try a single flashy move to evade the fire. He lands them hard on a portion of marsh that seems relatively clear. The moist mound of ground just about melts out from under them. Well, good. If the area’s that unstable hopefully the Galra will have difficulty attacking.

It seems that way for a bit. They search around the swamp for the plant, slowed and struggling through the muck but managing. They find a shallow pool with a grove of it. They don’t talk much, other than about Keith. The whole mission has a particular urgency to it since he’s so bad off.

The goal is get the plant, get out. They can come back and storm the Galra here and be heroic, and explore, and whatever else once Keith is okay again. Coran said they’d need at least three full plants, roots and all, for him to prepare the remedy. Hunk and Lance swap glances once they’ve filled a bag. Nodding in silent agreement, they fill several more.

It’s downright disturbing how sick Keith is and if he gets sick again, they’re going to be prepared.

They’re headed back to Blue when the first sentry fires. Hunk sees it before Lance does and bowls Lance out of the way, feeling a surge of scorching pain as the blast pierces through his armor under the shoulder blade. A hurt gasp leaps off his tongue, then they both go tumbling into the swampy muck. Lance pushes himself up and Hunk slides off of him. The sponge of higher ground provides only a small cover, but it is cover at least. Lance is quick with notably slippery fingers. His bayard is materialized by the time Hunk gets up on his knees and thankfully, it’s him that fires the next shot.

He takes out the first sentry before it can do anything. The second one shoots but its blast is absorbed by the sodden knoll of land and Lance returns fire, felling it in a shower of sparks. Hunk materializes his own bayard and for a moment they wait for another attack. It doesn’t come.

Caution lingering in his expression, Lance glances back to Hunk. “Are you hit? You cried out.”

Hunk nearly nods. But then images of Keith puking into the garbage and writhing weakly on the bed flash through his mind. That creepy rash had spread up to his neck by the time they’d left and his cough had gotten alarmingly worse. They have to get back to him, Hunk doesn’t have time to be hit.

“I just got spooked,” he tells Lance, feigning a laugh. “It didn’t even graze me.”

Lance visibly relaxes, shoulders sagging and some of the tension easing from his face. “Oh, good.”

Hunk bites his tongue when he gets up, swallowing down the groan that threatens to come out as he rises to his feet. They continue on cautiously, anticipating more sentries and keeping their bayards ready.

Luckily, it seems they were just stumbled upon by a lone patrol. That’s odd considering the Galra know they’re here, but Lance did land Blue relatively remotely. Perhaps the sentries have more trouble in this kind of terrain? Metal and muck really don't seem to compliment each other. 

Hunk glances back now and then to monitor for enemies and to make sure he’s not leaving a blood trail. He can feel himself bleeding but it’s slow, steady. He can also feel the spread of it beneath his armor rather than over, slick and dampening the under-suit. He checks just to be sure though and thankfully, he’s right. No blood trail.

Getting to the Blue Lion is easy enough. Getting off the plant is another story. Twice the assault that welcomed their arrival is waiting for their departure.

“Quiznak,” Lance growls. “Okay, no time for a fight. Hang on to something, alright Hunk? I’m just gonna jet us outta here top speed.”

Immediately after the warning, Lance pushes the lever in and Blue pistons through the atmosphere. Hunk grips the back of his chair tightly and ducks his head, trying not to be nauseous. They take a few hits that jar her pretty good and shake walls of the cockpit. Lance curses. Hunk’s stomach jiggles uneasily and his teeth rattle in his skull, but the damage isn’t enough to hinder Blue’s speed.

Hunk notices just how different it is to be in Blue. Hits like that would barely be felt in Yellow, if at all, and his highest acceleration isn’t as fast or as enduring as this. She may not be the speed demon Red is, but she’s just quick enough and just sturdy enough to get them out of there in under two minutes without any real damage sustained.

Blue is slippery like Lance is. She’s a good match for him. Hunk grins at the thought.

“You okay?” Lance asks, slowing her pace as soon as they’re out of immediate danger.

Hunk’s motion sickness is luckily on the modest side today but his wound gives a pointed throb. He nearly takes that as an opportunity to admit he has one but a hailing signal from the castle interrupts.

“Where are you?” Allura accuses. “You were supposed to be back over a varga ago!”

“That planet wasn’t the peaceful hangout spot Coran made it out to be!” Lance exclaims. “It was totally overrun by Galra!”

“What?” Allura gasps. “Oh…Oh no. Were you still able to recover the acanonii?”

“Oh yeah,” Lance promises. “Bags of it. How’s Keith holding up?”

“He's declining,” frets Allura. “His breathing has become heavily labored. It’s probable he’s had an eardrum rupture as well, but he’s in too much pain to let Coran check. I’m going to open a wormhole.”

“Aw man.” Lance winces. “See you in a minute then.”

“Poor guy,” Hunk murmurs.

“I so don’t like admitting I’m worried about that mullet, but I am very worried about that mullet.” Lance heaves a burdened sigh.

“We got the plants,” Hunk encourages although he’s frightened too. “We got a lot of plants. He’s gonna be okay.”

Lance gives a small nod, worry remaining crinkled on his brow.

Hunk can feel the inside of his suit growing wetter as the wound continues to ooze. Tendrils of blood roll down his skin warm and tickling, kind of. It’s a contrast to the prickling burn of the injury itself. Maybe it isn’t all blood though, some of it could be sweat. Maybe he should pretend it’s sweat because blood is worse to think about. Either way, it’s not that bad of a wound. It’s nowhere near as bad as what Keith’s suffering through right now. Definitely not worth bringing up to Lance when he’s already worried.

The wormhole manifests before Blue in a flurry of stars and Lance kicks up the speed as he takes them through. Their landing is a little jerky. Lance is sidetracked. They’re both sidetracked and Hunk lingers behind, taking the majority of the bags in his arms and making sure Lance doesn’t get a chance to see his back as he follows him out of the lion.

It can wait for a bit. Hunk has to acknowledge that he’s starting to feel dizzy so it can’t wait that much longer, but it can at least wait until they’ve delivered the acanonii to Coran.

It’s a pretty plant, really. No flowers but big, fanning leaves patterned with interesting gray swirls. Its stalk is tough even if it’s only about as thick around as a pencil.

Hunk nondescriptly tries to keep his front to everyone as they head to the infirmary. They catch the tail end of Keith’s latest coughing fit. Shiro is on the bed with Keith now, holding the younger boy up against his chest. It’s probably to help him breathe, going by how terrible he sounds, shallowly wheezing thick and strained breaths. He doesn’t look any better than he sounds, eyes closed and rash splashed across his cheeks. Shiro is solemn and only nods to Lance and Hunk in acknowledgement.

“We brought a lot,” Lance announces, gesturing to the bundles in Hunk’s arms. He has two bags clasped in his owns hands.

“Excellent.” Coran takes the bags from Lance and motions to Pidge.

She comes trotting over with a cart and Hunk drops his load onto it.

“I’m gonna help prepare this stuff,” she says as she whisks the cart off to their work station. “Coran taught me all about it while you guys were gone.”

“You could both help as well if you’d like to grind the roots,” Coran tells them.

“Can do.” Lance hurries to follow them and Hunk intends to, but the dizziness has caught up with him.

The room feels like its spinning and the floor seems to swivel under his feet. He takes a step and tilts precariously. He reaches for the wall and staggers to the side, grasping at it for support.

“Hunk?” Shiro calls. “You alright?”

Hunk pauses to catch his breath, trying to clear the shimmery spots from his vision.

“Hunk?” Lance turns back, voice small and eyes widening.

“Probably should’ve mentioned it a little earlier,” Hunk surmises. “I got hit, but uh, it's not that bad.”

Suddenly Allura is behind him, hauling him up by the arm. Hunk blinks rapidly in surprise. He didn't notice her before.

“It doesn’t look that good either,” she says. “Come on, to the pod.”

Hunk leans on her, trying to to give her too much of his weight, then reminding himself she can take it. He’s not used to anybody being able to do that, let alone deceptively slender Allura.

“He’ll be alright,” she calls out as she starts hauling him toward the cryo-pods.

“Thanks,” mumbles Hunk.

“I know there’s a lot going on right now, but you should’ve said something before you nearly tipped over,” she scolds.

“Right,” says Hunk. He’d intended to.

She leans him up against a pod and helps him strip down to his blood soaked under-suit. She keeps a steadying hand on his shoulder as he steps inside and tells him to get some rest as the cool dome slides closed.

* * *

Lance is there to catch Hunk when he stumbles out again but this time its different. He holds him out instead of hugging and stares into his face with a guarded kind of concern.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Hunk murmurs slowly, getting his bearings.

“Since that’s a question you don’t always answer honestly, apparently, I’ll double check.” Lance frowns at him, a warning in his tone.“Are you okay?”

“Don’t be mad,” Hunk begs. “Look, we were in a rush and…”

Lance lets go of him and pivots around on his heels, walking away. “Yep. You’re okay.”

Pidge rolls her eyes and does the hugging solo this time. “Morning, Sunshine.”

“He’s pissed,” Hunk sighs as he hugs her back.

“Big time,” Pidge mutters gruffly. “Between him and Keith, I want to scream.”

“Keith!” Hunk jerks suddenly. “Whoa, Keith, is he okay?”

“Quiznaking crabby is what he is,” Pidge sniffs. “I've never seen anyone brood so much! He's grouchy and won’t listen to anybody, and keeps complaining about the translations on the alien tv I set up for him being wonky even though I didn’t have to set it up for him at all. He keeps yelling at Shiro for being a helicopter and tries to sneak out of bed. I caught him in the act and he threw a cup at me! Sick Keith is the Worst Keith.”

“I’ll take the Worst Keith over Dying Keith,” Hunk decides, relieved.

“You say that now.” Pidge draws back, wry smirk on her lips. “You’ve been lucky to miss out on it.”

“How much did I miss?” Hunk asks.

“Day and a half.” Pidge's smirk morphs into a pout. “You gotta stop doing this, man.”

“Sorry…”

“I forgive you,” Pidge decides easily enough. “Don’t know about Lance though.”

“I’ll talk to him.” Hunk’s shoulders slump sadly. He hates it when people are mad at him. Especially when it’s Lance.

* * *

He changes into his casual clothes and decides to check on Keith before he talks to Lance. Keith is still in the infirmary, nested in various blankets that include Hunk’s bathrobe. He’s on his side, resting his head on a hot water bottle and scowling at a holo screen. He’s still got some flush in his face but the rash is gone and it doesn’t sound like he’s struggling to breathe.

“Hey,” Hunk greets. “You look better.”

“So do you.” Keith slides a glance to him. “Checked on you when I escaped, before Shiro dragged me back here.”

Hunk laughs. He finds it funny right up until the second water bottle that isn’t in use comes flying toward his head. He narrowly dodges it. “Jeez!”

Keith tucks his throwing arm back into the blanket nest and glares. “It isn’t funny! Everyone’s babying me like I can’t take care of myself and hanging around like they think I'm gonna keel over if they don't check on me every single time I cough! Shiro practically wants to staple himself to me. I have no idea what changed because on Earth he'd actually give me some space! Allura finally got him out of here to go over some battle strategies. That’s what she said anyway, but I think she just did it out of pity." 

“Allura is still trying to make up for how she treated you for being Galra, especially because you almost just died from being Galra. I'd milk it if I were you.” Hunk plops down on the edge of the bed.

“You think?” Keith raises a brow, cooling off a bit.

“Nah, I know. I’m a pretty perceptive guy.”

“Huh…” Keith looks considerate.

“So how do you feel?” Hunk asks.

Wrong question. So much for being perceptive. Keith bristles up like an angry cat and hisses like one too. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that question today!?”

He works himself up so much he starts coughing. It sounds drier than the way he was coughing before, like the infection in his chest is clearing up. It doesn’t sound as deep and nasty as it had. Hunk automatically reaches out to rub his back anyway. 

Another bad move. Keith slaps his hand away and stubbornly glowers until the fit passes.

“Pidge was right,” Hunk remarks. “You’re like the Godzilla of grouches right now.”

“Then go away.” Keith irritably huffs and readjusts the hot water bottle.

“Alright, fine.” Hunk gets up and walks to the end of the infirmary. He pauses and looks back over his shoulder. “Do you need anything before I go?”

“Walk faster," he mutters sullenly. 

Yikes. Hunk leaves (mostly for his own safety) but he hasn’t changed his mind. The Worst Keith is infinitely better than Dying Keith. 

Time to deal with Lance. Hunk swallows and heads for the blue paladin’s quarters, nervous. He supposes it’s fair to be mad all things considering, and he does feel guilty, but fighting with Lance makes him feel like crap. Lance is rarely ever actually mad at him. This is an exception to the rule though, Hunk knows that. No dramatics on this one, Lance is truly pissed.

Hunk gulps again and knocks on his door. It slides open and he cautiously steps into the room.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

Lance is on his bed, fixing Hunk with a cool stare. “Don’t know if I want to hear what you have to say.”

“I’m sorry,” Hunk says. “I shouldn’t have waited so long before I ‘fessed up.”

“See, that still means you think it’s okay that you lied to me,” Lance retorts sharply. “You lied to me! I asked if you were hit point blank and you lied to me!”

“You would’ve stopped,” Hunk says slowly. “To take a look, maybe even for first aid. We didn’t have time for that.”

“Of course I would’ve stopped,” Lance huffs. “We could’ve spared all of thirty seconds for me to slap something on to keep you from bleeding the whole way back the castle. What if it was more serious than you thought?”

“It wasn’t though,” Hunk says. “I—“

“Got so dizzy from blood loss that you couldn't stand up!” Lance throws his hands up. “Why don’t you see a problem with that? Why don’t you see a problem with lying to me? That was the first time you ever lied to me!”

Hunk flinches back. He guilty rubs at the nape of his neck. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. About something pretty serious too.” Lance crosses his arms and in that action he looks just as vulnerable as angry. “I was scared enough with stupid Keith being so sick. Then you had to go and lie and end up in the pod again.”

“You’re right,” Hunk admits. “I shouldn’t have lied. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t,” Lance emphasizes. “At all.”

“Can I make it up to you?”

Lance considers. “Yeah…You can promise to never take a hit for me ever again.”

"Huh?"

"You heard me. You can't do that anymore." 

"You took a hit for Coran," Hunk reminds him. 

"That was different." Lance quickly flaps his hand. "Are you going to promise me or not?" 

Hunk doesn't see how it's different. He sighs and leans against the wall. “I mean, you know I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Lance stands up from the bed and gives Hunk a flint stare.

“Uh…That’s literally my job. You heard Allura. Friends first, that’s Yellow’s thing. He takes pilots that prioritize others, so defending you guys is my position on the team.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lance smacks a hand to his forehead and groans in frustration. “That’s only when you're piloting! The Yellow Lion has the most armor! You don’t have any more armor than I do when we’re on the ground!”

“No but I have more padding than you, Mr. Lean,” Hunk teases, trying to lighten the mood.

Bad move. His third bad move of the day. Lance gapes at him, stern and sad and pissed and anxious all at once and Hunk isn’t sure if he’s going to yell or cry. He reaches out and gently touches his shoulder.

“Lance, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” Lance does yell and nearly cries, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. “You shouldn’t take any hits for me. You cook and you fix things, and your hugs are almost as good as my mom’s. Nobody could get by without you.”

“And you think we could get by without you?” Hunk shakes his head. “Nuh-huh. No way.”

Lance chews some more on his lip. Hunk recognizes it when he's holding back, eating up the things he doesn't want to say. Disbelief is dark in his eyes and Hunk pulls him a little closer, takes his other shoulder.

“Everybody needs you, man. Nobody on the team can shoot like you and it’s so much more than that, okay?" Hunk promises. "Keith needs you to get out his fire without doing something reckless. Pidge never says it, but you getting all annoying older brother on her? She needs that when she misses her own brother so much. You help Shiro let loose and we all know he needs that, c'mon. I need you more than anyone because you’re my best friend. Lance, you’re like the most needed person ever, alright?” Hunk draws Lance in for a tentative hug and rests his chin atop his head.

Lance leans into him and exhales a slow breath. He hugs Hunk back and nuzzles his face into his shoulder.

“I still don’t think it’s your job to be some human shield,” he mumbles with a trace of annoyance.

“I don’t see it that way,” Hunk says. “Besides, even if wasn’t my job—“

“It’s not,” Lance pointedly cuts in.

“—I feel the need to protect you. Space is scary all around and battle is horrifying. The only thing that freaks me out more than getting hurt is one of you guys getting hurt.”

“We need you though." 

“Well…” Sometimes it sure seemed like they couldn’t get along without him. Eh, they’d probably find a way if they had to. It just wouldn’t be ideal. “Yeah, you have a point. I don’t know who’d cook for you or fix your stuff but I do know who could be the next yellow paladin, at least.”

Well, perhaps fix their stuff too. The individual Hunk had in mind did have experience with spacecraft repair.

Lance pulls back from him and gives him a strange look. “Allura?”

“Nope.”

“Not Coran?”

“No.”

“…The yellow mouse?”

Hunk laughs. “No way. Look, I’m not going to say it out loud. That’d be bad luck. Just because I have an emergency replacement in mind in doesn’t mean I want to be replaced.”

“Fair enough. At the risk of sounding sappy, you really can’t be replaced anyway.” Lance flicks him in the forehead and with that, Hunk knows he is forgiven.


	4. for the cause

Hunk’s beginning to wish he would’ve brought his lion.

Liberating the work camp requires some of them on the ground. Pidge is a necessity because she can hack into the security system. Lance is here to give her backup. Hunk is here to direct and protect the prisoners, and supplementary as he promised Pidge, to keep a special lookout for her father.

Keith is necessary in the air, the Red Lion’s agility makes her ideal against the drones. Keith can’t be the only one in the air and the Black Lion is the most skilled in combat. Yellow might be a heavy hitter, but he’s slower too, and means he’s the least ideal lion against the needlelike, swift drones that guard the camp.

However, Yellow would be more ideal than Hunk to hold up a concrete wall.

Which Hunk is currently trying his damn best to do.

“Get out of here!” He shouts to the frightened prisoners strewn and battered among the debris that keeps raining.

Hunk doesn’t know which explosion caused it, but the ceiling’s coming down and so is the wall. He’s bent under the latter, propping it up as best he can.

“I can’t keep this up forever,” he heaves out through gritted teeth. “You guys gotta move!”

One of the aliens picks their self up and shakes their head clear, helping another prisoner off the ground with one of their long striped tails. Hunk’s never seen an alien like that before. Their body is serpentine on eight nubby legs and their face is almost deer like, but only has eyes and a nose. He doesn’t realize the mouth is in their neck until they give him an emotional “thank you” and bound away.

He recognizes some of the other aliens though, at least their species. He tries to focus on that instead of the pain. There’s three people like Slav sticking close together. They’re hurrying away, the plumes of their fluffy tails streaking out behind them. There’s another alien like a customer he had at Vrepit Sal’s, blob like and fish-eyed. No sign of Pidge’s dad.

“Please go,” Hunk begs again of the last aliens who are still getting their senses back.

One of them can’t hear him, he realizes after a couple minutes. They’re already dead. Their blood is a shade of yellow not unlike his suit, pooling around their head. The chunk of debris that dealt the final blow is a few short lengths away, glistening balefully.

Hunk swallows and sweeps around the area with his eyes. The last prisoner, a silvery nautiloid with docked and bound wings of some kind, limps away on shaky tentacles. It’s just him and one dead alien left.

“Sorry,” he apologizes to the corpse, guilt prickling in his chest. He had one job.

“The Galra bombed the cellblocks,” Pidge reports over the comms. “I think they’re trying to lure us away from the control room.”

“I freed one before it could collapse…mostly,” pants Hunk. “Didn’t find your dad.”

“Did you escort the escaped prisoners to the pod?” Shiro asks.

Hunk doesn’t reply immediately. He shifts slightly under the crushing weight of the wall and uselessly pushes upward with his palms. Of course it doesn’t budge. It's unbearably heavy on his back. Straightening up is impossible. He takes a step to the side and tries to inch his way a minute distance, but no, not happening. God, it hurts. He can’t try that again. He’s going to slip a disk if he makes it out of here at all.

He realizes with a deep, icy dread that doesn’t seem to be the likely outcome right now. He’s stuck. He can’t get out from under the wall. He doesn’t know how much longer he can prop up the wall.

“Hunk?” prompts Shiro.

His legs are trembling, the muscles burning with ache. His back silently screams under the pressure. There’s a dull kind of pain in his head too, probably the weight of the wall coming down on a helmet that’s already too snug for him. He can feel sweat dampening his hair and trickling down behind his ear.

He’s going to give out. He doesn’t know when, but he knows it’s inevitable. Probably sooner than later.

“I guess you guys are busy, huh?” Hunk tries to sound somewhat casual but his pitch heightens with alarm and his breathing is strained with effort.

“Hunk, what’s wrong?” Lance asks quickly.

“I was evacuating the cell when it collapsed. Every prisoner but one made it out, but I’m trying to keep the wall from flattening me and that’s…really not working out so well.”

“Which cell!?” Pidge demands. “Where are you!?”

“I’m not sure,” Hunk admits, his panic carrying his voice up another octave. “They all look the same.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro says calmly. “Just hang tight for a few more minutes. I’ll get a lock on your location and get you out of there as soon as I can.”

“Great,” Hunk says, aiming for relief and hoping none of them can hear the way his voice quavers. The sweat is thicker on his neck now, streaming down, his hair sodden with it. Maybe it’s actually blood. He doesn't want to think it's blood. The dull throbbing in his head is becoming more incessant and his spine feels apt to shatter.

Hunk tries to pace his breaths. He can’t raise his head to see much more than the piles of rubble, the dead prisoner, and the beginning of the opening the survivors escaped through. He can hear a lot more than he can see. He can hear clashing metal, blasting weapons, the focused grunts of his friends over the comms. There are scents in the air too. That dead alien’s blood has a smell. It isn’t metallic like human blood, it’s stringent and harsh, a tang like vinegar on his tongue.

“Sorry, dude,” he says again, taking another look at the poor cre— _person_ , definitely a person —and wincing at the wretched sight.

There’s another explosion close enough that Hunk feels it and the screams that follow are almost as loud. The gut-wrenching decibels of panicked, terrified prisoners he’s supposed to be saving. A burst of fresh pain rockets up the rungs of his spine so bad that he cries out and absently notes that he can’t even save himself.

“Go get him, Shiro!” Lance shouts.

“I’m trying,” Shiro snaps at him and that tone, his rattled loss-of-control tone, tells Hunk everything. “I can’t pinpoint your location, Hunk, is your suit damaged?”

Hunk gulps, that icy dread in the pit of his stomach burrowing even deeper and flooding through his entire body. “It’s gotta be. I heard it crack when the wall fell.”

Shiro sputters for a moment but doesn’t spit out anything but a curse. Pidge’s gasp is audible but no one actually speaks. The dread draws despair in for a morbid dance as the bleak realization of what this means cements itself. Hunk nearly gags, one leg giving out. He crashes down to one knee and the agonizing detonation of splintering bone manages to be a background event to the sheer snow-blind terror as he almost loses the fight to the wall right then and there.

Everybody screams his name and Hunk moans when the moment passes, the pain fully registering. The wall presses on, harder still. His whole upper body dips awkwardly under the colossal force. It simply isn’t possible to keep this up.

“I’m gonna die,” he squeaks out. “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die.”

“No you’re not!” Keith sounds pissed. “Calm down! Panicking isn’t going to help!“

“You guys can’t get to me,” Hunk assess, jittery and wan. He’s crying. He doesn’t remember when he started but it couldn’t have been just now, his lashes and cheeks are already wet. “There’s no way out of this, I’m gonna die.”

“Hold on,” Lance yells. “Fuck the control room, me and Pidge are coming for you!”

“My parents,” Hunk gets out in a ragged, weepy gasp. “When you guys go back to Earth just find them and apologize for me, okay?”

“No, Hunk,” Pidge argues, her own voice thin and trembly.

Hunk can’t hear the outside anymore. Not over his hysteric friends, not over his own harried breaths.

“I have a flash drive in my room with recipes of what alien foods work so far,” he babbles on, desperate to get it all out before the wreaked cell turns him into a bloodied, pulpy pancake. “Uh, Pidge, I’m sorry I went through your stuff that one time. I’ll confess, it was more than one time. Lance, you can have my robe. I know you like curling up in clothes too big for you when you’re sad.”

“Hunk, stop!” Keith still sounds pissed but there’s a vulnerable undercurrent in the words.

It _hurts_.

“This goes without saying but you’re my favorite Galra ever, Keith, and I think you need to let your sense of humor show more…” Hunk chokes back a whine as his compromised stance gives a threatening tremble. “Shiro, I know you worry about everything but don’t worry about who’s going to replace me! Hear me out, Shay can totally pilot Yellow.”

“Shay doesn’t know how to pilot!” Lance squawks hysterically, his voice wrung out of him all weird in a way that manages to freak Hunk out in the face of everything else that’s happening.

“The Garrison didn’t exactly prepare us to pilot ancient, sentient robot lions either.” Hunk’s just about gagging on his own sobs at this point, hopefully they can still understand him. “Yellow likes Shay and she has all the right qualities. She’s open and she’s caring and she’ll probably be even better than me. Yellow’s element is earth and she totally matches up with that since she’s a rock lady. She’s from underground…I can’t!”

Hunk folds under the wall like a collapsed card table and the little stability of the shambolic cell ceases. Everything comes crashes down. He’s not sure if the last crack he hears is his armor or his bones as he’s buried under the rubble and blackness replaces everything.

* * *

Hunk didn’t expect to wake up again.

But he does, stumbling dazedly out of the cryo-pod and into Lance. Of course. Lance is always the first one there.

“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs quietly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Hunk finds himself answering. “Surprisingly…How?”

Pidge predictably ducks into his other side and squeezes hard with her short little arms. “One of the aliens you helped escape found us.”

“Oh,” Hunk says. “Are they all okay?”

“Yes,” Allura answers, walking over to put a hand on his head. “They left about a week ago.”

Hunk blinks rapidly. “A week? I was out for a week?”

“Three,” Lance mumbles into his shoulder.

“Three weeks!?” Hunk gawks at that and sways.

Lance shifts to put his arm around his shoulder and Pidge stands straighter against him. Keith pulls a chair out from the table and they take him to it. Hunk slumps wearily.

“Are you alright?” asks Coran, tugging apprehensively at his mustache.

“Uh-huh. I mean, I’ve never been out cold for three weeks before,” Hunk says. “I kind of feel like I hibernated but I dunno, I thought I was gonna die so…”

“Your injuries were numerous and extensive,” Allura explains, her voice too feathery and hesitation threading every word. “You’re actually up sooner than I thought you’d be.”

“Glad I didn’t miss any more,” Hunk says. He tries for cheerful but he thinks he’s a bit too busy adjusting to pull it off.

Everyone is quiet for a moment and then Keith shuffles closer, resting a hand on his forearm. “Do you remember us digging you out?”

Hunk shakes his head.

Keith nods and seems to relax somewhat at that. He doesn’t move his hand or move away and Hunk doesn’t ask him to elaborate. He’s sure it wasn’t pretty. It’s bad enough to remember what happened without being filled in on the gruesome details he was spared.

“Shiro?” Hunk glances to the black paladin hovering just a few steps away. He’s been close and watchful but unusually silent. Unusually pale too.

“Sorry.” Shiro blinks and tacks on a smile. “Good to see you back.”

There’s a crawling uneasiness that taints the relief in the air. Coran plops some food goo in front of him and Hunk eats and there’s some chatter but it’s not like it normally is. Everybody is keeping a particularly trained eye on him. Keith hovers around oddly close and Shiro is standing back, which is even weirder. They all chip in to tell him something about what he’s missed in the past three weeks, but it all sounds obligatory rather than engaging.

Hunk isn’t sure if he should call this out now or just bite his tongue and wait for the residual awkwardness to blow over. He’s not sure exactly what’s wrong, or what part of it’s wrong rather. Maybe it’d be better if he’d been well, calmer about dying. If he’d said something cool like Shiro probably would, or sassy like Pidge probably would, or upbeat like Lance probably would, or nothing like Keith probably wouldn’t, or even if he’d still said the same things without all the terrified sobbing.

“Are you done?” Lance asks uncertainly.

Hunk looks at the half-full bowl of goo and nods. “Yeah. Guess I’m not hungry, think I’m gonna go back to my room for a bit.”

Keith is still hovering and has to step back when Hunk pushes his chair out. Pidge and Lance exchange worried looks. They both seem like they want to say something but neither of them do.

“I washed your clothes,” Allura softly tells him. “They’re on your bed. Everything else should be untouched.”

“No,” Lance speaks up. “I moved them. I uh, slept in there a few times. To guard your stuff. I thought Pidge might go through it in revenge while you were out.”

She gives him an unamused look and Hunk lets out a weak chuckle. 

“Thanks.”

* * *

He’s just finished changing when someone knocks. Shiro. Hunk knows it’s Shiro from the unmistakable tap of metal fingers even before he lets himself in, the knock more of a courtesy than permission.

“Hey,” Hunk says.

“Hey.” Shiro folds his arms. “You okay?”

“Are you?” Hunk returns, raising a brow. “Are they?”

Shiro sighs heavily. “They’re worried about you. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.” Hunk spreads his arms, flips his palms up. “Take a look. Cryo-pod fixed me right up.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Shiro steps forward and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“I was terrified,” Hunk admits bluntly. “I thought I was about to die. It’s not the first time I’ve felt like that on a mission, actually, I guess it’s just more noticeable this time since you guys thought that too. I’m not brave—“

“Don’t say that,” Shiro cuts in, authoritative. “You were very brave. You got all the prisoners out.”

“No, I didn’t. One of them died less than three feet away from me.” Hunk steps back from Shiro’s touch and sits on the edge of his bed. “I freaked out. I was really scared and I wasn’t brave or graceful, I was crying. I don’t want to die, okay? I know I might, all of us might, but that doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying.”

Shiro inhales a sharp breath but before he can start, Hunk holds up a hand.

“Look, I still want to be a paladin, okay? I’m not going to bail on you guys or all the inhabitants of the universe that need us just because I get scared. But I _do_ get scared and I don’t wear it as well as the rest of you do.”

Shiro scoffs. “You think I wear it well when I’m scared? I had a panic attack when I couldn’t find you. I almost crashed Black. Part of what happened was my fault, you shouldn’t have been alone.”

Hunk shakes his head. “Don’t blame yourself, Shiro. It’s just compartmentalizing. Everybody was split up the right way to get what we had to do done. I should’ve paid more attention to where I was going. It happened. I’m still alive. But that’s why everybody is looking at me like that, right? Because I freaked out?”

“I think that’s a part of it,” Shiro says hesitantly. “What happened shook everyone up. Three weeks is the longest any of us have been in a healing pod and the castle is a lot different without you. Give them a chance to see you’re okay and then they’ll be okay too. You are okay?” Shiro tilts his head.

“Yeah,” Hunk says. “I’m alive. Doom totally averted.”

“If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Before Hunk can reply, the door slides open without warning and Pidge barrels right past Shiro to throw herself into Hunk. She’s like a bullet and she’d have knocked him down if he weren’t on the bed, size of a grape or not.

“Whoa, Pidge!”

She buries her face into his stomach. The rim of her glasses presses uncomfortably into his belly. She clenches her fists in his shirt until her knuckles go white. She’s shaking but Hunk doesn’t realize she’s crying until he feels the dampness.

He shoots a bewildered look to Shiro. Shiro sighs quietly, something dark and unreadable flickering in his eyes. He sidles out to give them their privacy. Hunk puts one hand on Pidge’s back and cards the other through her hair. She settles against him after a bit of him doing that, soothed by his technique.

“I thought you were dead,” she mumbles. “But the second Keith moved you, you— you just _screamed_. So much. You don’t remember screaming, do you?”

“No.” Hunk strokes up and down her quivering back. “I don’t. I’m glad I don’t.”

“I bet.” She exhales a low, teary breath and tugs on his shirt even harder. “It was the worst noise I’ve ever heard…and it made me happy anyway, because it meant you weren’t dead.”

Hunk winces inwardly and just keeps petting her hair and rubbing her back because he doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m alright now,” he settles on finally, keeping his voice warm and smooth. “You guys saved me. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying!”

“Okay,” he teases. “So you’re not crying and it’s totally not your tears and boogers staining my shirt.”

Pidge picks her head up and glares at him with puffy eyes. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve had to struggle without you these past few weeks? I want to make a game console but I need your help with the assembly. Allura tried to help but she almost blew up my laptop. And Lance has been driving me nuts! He’s weirdly clingy without you around and I swear his jokes have gotten worse.”

“Your face is a joke that’s gotten worse,” Lance retorts as he invites himself in, plopping down on Hunk’s bed and leaning into his side. “Quit hogging Hunk.”

Keith quietly slips in behind him and sits at Hunk’s other side, not touching but close enough that Hunk can feel his body heat. “You're cooking tonight, right?”

“He just woke up,” Pidge snaps.

“Yeah,” says Lance. “You cook tonight!”

“He had three whole weeks to sleep,” Keith argues, looking to Hunk with pleading eyes. “Coran’s food is going to kill us.”

Hunk laughs lightly and smiles. “Sure thing. I need to be in the kitchen anyway, helps me relax.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My biggest mistake in this fic thus far is that there is no Slav. Where is Slav. What have I done... D: 
> 
> Well, let's pretend he's on vacation. Poor thing deserves a vacation for sure.


	5. for the lead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Upfront, I just about butcher the layout of the castle in this. Am I mad at myself for that? Partly because it's lazy writing and I admit it. But partly not for two reasons. First being I think the universal rule of whump is "make shit up as long as someone suffers." And second because...I am honestly confused about the layout of the castle. I've watched both seasons at least twice and I'm still confused! Maybe this is because I'm bad at directions. No lie, I am an adult and I got lost in the big grocery store just last year. I don't get the castle layout and I don't know where anything is. 
> 
> Also warning, temporary death ahead! I didn't use the Archive Warning since idk if it counts as major character death if it's only temporary, but I did tag it in the general tags and I'm warning again here since I know that kind of thing can trigger people. There is also some death associated unpleasantness. Also hints at Allura magic because headcanons.

Hunk is in the kitchen, making some kind of pasta. He’d had to make the noodles from scratch with various ingredients he’d scrounged up around the castle. They’ve turned out alright, albeit a bit grainer than he’d planned.

The sauce was not something he’d had to create himself. It had been a gift from a small village of these incredibly adorable moth people that Keith didn’t seem to want to leave. It has a lemony kind of smell and a salty kind of taste. Not bad at all, but there needs to be meat…Or alien meat substitute.

Alien meat substitute is what he’s got to work with right now. He deliberates between two of the boxes in the cabinet. One has a more poultry taste, which Hunk is leaning toward, but the other is most comparable to seafood in texture and tang. He isn’t opposed to experimentation, so maybe he should try the latter just to see what happens…

“What are you doing up?”

Hunk wheels around to see Shiro leaning in the doorway.

“Couldn’t sleep, thought I’d cook. You?”

Shiro shrugs. Hunk studies him carefully and tips his head.

“Have a rough night?” he asks. Shiro was prone to those, more than he liked to let on.

“Somewhat.” He lowers his eyes as he runs a hand back through his hair, and then walks into the kitchen. “What are you making?”

Hunk couldn’t force him to talk about it even if he wanted to, and he definitely doesn’t want to.

“I don’t know but it has spiral noodles and moth sauce. Since you’re up, you get to be my lucky assistant. What kind of fake space meat do you want?” Hunk holds the boxes out for him to survey.

“Uh…” Shiro squints at them thoughtfully. “The pink one.”

“Fake alien fish it is.” Hunk puts the boxes down and crouches to paw through the stash of pans in the bottom cabinet.

This is when the entire floor shudders beneath his feet. It feels almost like the ground does before a volcano goes off and just as he lifts his head, the eruption of chaos that follows is just as destructive. The wall crumbles inward as a vibrant violet blast tears right through.

Shiro’s knocked back by a huge slab of flying chrome and the counter is instantly dislodged from the floor, slamming into Hunk forcefully and pinning him to the floor. He yelps in pain and then he’s swept up by unconsciousness.

He doesn’t know how long he’s blacked out for but when he comes to, they’re still being attacked.

By what? The castle’s never been directly damaged like that!

The alarm is going off, he knows by the flashing light, but he can’t hear it or what Allura is announcing. His ears are ringing from the blast. Or was there more than one?

Hunk can see how decimated the kitchen is if he tilts his head, but he has to get out from under the counter. The thing is digging right into his rib cage and nearly smothering him with pressure. He lifts it up with his legs and awkwardly rolls out from under it. It drops back heavily but he can’t hear that crash either. The tinny ringing continues ravaging his ears unabashed.

Hunk gets to his hands and knees, grasping at his side when the motion incites pain. _Oh._ He breathes in as deep as he can and curls in, groaning through his teeth when doing so feels like stabbing into his lungs. That’s probably a broken rib or two, badly bruised at the least. There’s a duller pain in the middle of his chest too. The pressure isn’t as bad as being squished by the counter, but it’s tight and uncomfortable. Maybe he bruised his sternum too.

The alarm is still going off. Allura’s probably telling everybody to get to their lions and Hunk aims to do that, but he needs a minute to recover before he goes for his suit. The floor trembles so hard he nearly loses his balance. The castle’s getting torn up somewhere else. Hunk wonders how many times it’s been hit. Is everybody else out there fighting? He wonders if Shiro—

Shiro!

Hunk abruptly stands up, gaze darting around the ruined room. He peers closely at heaps of broken cabinets and chrome for anything that might resemble a limb.

Maybe he made it out?

Hunk stumbles around broken ground to get into the hallway. The corridor to get back to their quarters is blocked off by rubble. So much for getting his suit. There’s multiple routes to get to Yellow himself though. Hunk shakes his head, the ringing in his ears growing fainter and some of his hearing coming back.

Allura is directing battle on the alarm. Hunk’s still finding it difficult to discern audio over the dwindling ringing but he thinks he hears her say “Green.” Pidge is fighting at least, then? Is everybody?

Hunk finds the answer to this question when he nearly trips over Shiro. 

“Oh no, no, no! Shiro? Shiro!” Hunk crawls around the older paladin and swallows. He reaches out and hesitates, fear rising in his throat. Shiro is sprawled limply on his back and scarily pale. His nightshirt is torn and a shallow wound weeps blood in the center of some dark bruising that swallows up nearly as much of his torso as his scars do. There are two thin rivulets of blood trickling out of each nostril that flow together and stream down the side of his lip.

What scares Hunk the most is the head injury. There’s a wide gash running diagonally from behind his ear to the top of his head. He must’ve been bleeding for awhile too because some of it is drying tacky in his hair, dying the white forelock pink.

Hunk presses two fingers to the side of his neck and is overcome with relief to find a pulse.

Moving Shiro probably isn’t the greatest idea considering his injuries. He could be hurt internally and even if superficial head wounds do bleed a lot, Hunk is going to err on the side of caution and treat it like it’s serious. Shiro is out cold and the castle is under attack. Caution needs to set the guidelines here.

Moving him isn’t handling the situation cautiously by normal standards but the cryo-pods aren’t far from here and he evidently needs one. Hunk carefully scoops him up bridal style. Then immediately almost drops him, shocked as a sudden burst of pain flares through his middle. He bends over, grasping Shiro tighter to keep from letting go as he tries to ride it out.

The pain settles but it doesn’t disappear. It’s mostly in his side. Something digging in. It sharpens when he inhales and that agitates the pain in his chest too. That’s duller but persists, the sensation of pressure resurfacing.

That can’t be good. It doesn’t change his plan though. Shiro’s obviously worse off. Hunk’s hurt, maybe more than he anticipated, but not too hurt to carry him. He just has to accommodate. He takes a measured breath that he exhales out before it can fill him deep enough to drive any further that perverse pain of something digging in.

He starts walking, steps heavy but determined for the destination.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he shakily tells Shiro just to make himself feel better. “I remember our crash course in cryo-pods. Still working on my Altean, but I’ve got the characters for the auto detection setting memorized. Kinda reminds me of the sensor reheat button on the microwave.”

The castle rocks under his steps as the outside battle rages on. The particle barrier is definitely up now but the shockwaves of whatever the hell weapon that is can still be felt. The alarm system is still flashing but Allura’s no longer directing over the address system. Hunk supposes she doesn’t have a reason to, must’ve realized he and Shiro weren’t joining in. Well, Hunk supposes he'll have to join in as soon as he gets Shiro taken care of.

“Wonder how things are going out there,” Hunk rambles on nervously. “Hope they’re doing okay without us.”

The castle rocks again and Hunk stumbles, falling to one knee. The pain in his side knocks the breath out of him and his chest cinches uncomfortably tight under that unshakeable pressure. Okay, yeah, that’s getting worse. Ribs probably-broken just upgraded to positively-broken in Hunk’s mind. He takes a minute to compose himself. He adjusts his grip on Shiro and gets up again.

“They’re probably okay,” Hunk continues. “Pidge is really good with her new plant beam thing. Allura’s providing cover. I was gonna go join them but I think I might have to sit this one out and just put myself in the pod next to yours…”

Hunk spares Shiro an anxious look. The older paladin wasn’t bleeding anymore but it couldn’t be good that he’d been out for this long, right? That he hadn’t even stirred when Hunk nearly tripped?

“Almost there,” he sighs, wincing when the action reaches his chest.

It’s then that it dawns on him that’s he’s not just short of breath from consciously pacing it faster to avoid worsening that stabbing in his side. He’s legitimately having difficulty breathing. That’s a frightening realization and Hunk almost drops Shiro a third time, stumbling clumsily in the blossom of panic.

Hunk holds fast to him and quickly rights himself, jarred by the sound of his own panting. There’s no reason to panic. Once he turns this corner, the pods will be all lined up. He can take care of Shiro and then himself, and the others are probably handling whatever’s going on outside just fine. They’ve been through battle after battle and things always seem abysmal before they come out on top anyway.

The short walk around the bend feels much longer than it should. Shiro is leaden in his arms and his own injuries continue to intensify. The pressure in the middle of his chest is near excruciating now. He has a nagging yearning to grope around his side and yank out those invisible daggers he knows aren't there.

Hunk drags himself around the corner with Shiro cradled to his struggling chest and snaps ramrod straight at what he finds.

The weapon that destroyed the kitchen was here too. One wall is smashed in but its wreaked remains are so piled up Hunk can’t see anything outside but the light that peaks in. He can hear some of the fighting but it’s too faint to be distinguishable. Some of the pods were stored under the floor and should be undamaged but out of the four that were above for use, three are damaged. Two are demolished, busted on the floor with shards of glass and chunks of chrome glittering like confetti. One is upright but its glass shield is cracked like a spiderweb and the chrome pillar of another broken pod impales its base. 

Hunk’s legs buckle and he crashes to both knees this time, breathless groan catching between his teeth. He struggles to keep his grasp on Shiro long enough to lower him gently. When he’s down Hunk checks his pulse again. Still there. Not as strong as it was the first time, he doesn’t think. Guilt gnaws at his stomach when he thinks that carrying him really might have injured him further.

There’s no way to tell. His injuries just might be progressing without prompting, like Hunk’s are. Breathing is a fraught challenge at this point. The pain’s so bad he wants to scream but there’s not enough power in his struggling lungs to support it. He’d felt a bit lightheaded toward the end of his trek, but now that Hunk’s on the ground, the sensation has increased enough to be sickening. HIs vision swims dizzily,

He’s got to pull himself together long enough to take care of Shiro though. He brought them this far. He will, he just…needs a minute. Hunk leans over, pressing one palm to the floor to help him balance as he focuses on breathing the best he can. Just a minute, just some time to get a second wind—

No, Shiro doesn’t have that time. _He_ doesn’t have that time. Simply trying to get enough air is leeching away the little strength he’s got left. If he sits here for much longer he’s not going to have enough to stand, let alone lift Shiro.

Hunk blearily looks through his bangs to the one intact pod. It’s less than twenty feet away. All he has to do is pop Shiro in, select the auto detection button, and then find the panel to get another one up from the floor for himself. Three simple steps. Well, four.

Painstakingly, Hunk climbs to his feet. He feebly whimpers as his side protests the movement. It's instantly evident that picking up Shiro is not something that’s going to happen again. He doesn’t feel steady enough for it and he can’t bear the thought of just how much it’ll hurt if Shiro bumps against his chest.

He’ll just have to drag him. It’s not that far.

_Not that far._

Hunk slides his arms under Shiro’s shoulders and tugs him backward, careful as possible for both their sakes. He keeps reminding himself this isn’t the scariest thing that’s happened in space so far, that he’s been through worse. By the time Hunk finally reaches the pod, wobbling like gelatin and heaving for one solid intake of air, the sentiment seems much more like a lie.

His vision fuzzes as he packs Shiro into the cryo-pod. The sound of him falling back against it so eerily slack makes Hunk’s stomach roil and undercuts the relief that he finally got him in there. It slips closed by itself and the calibration board illuminates. The hard part is over.

Hunk taps the sensor setting and stumbles away. Shiro’s all set. Time to take care of himself. It shouldn’t be that hard to get the other pods to pop out of the floor. There’s a thing for that he probably should’ve memorized too, but it’s there at least. He just has to— breathe, he has to breathe!

He has to breathe, fuck, he can’t breathe!

Hunk trips and breaks the fall with his hands, gulping desperately to get enough air. His vision fuzzes over again and his arms give out. He flops heavily onto his front and agony hooks impossibly deep into his side like claws. His chest feels like it lapses inward and hot liquid jets up his throat.

Hunk coughs it out, absently expecting bile and intrinsic terror spiking past its zenith when it's blood that splatters the floor. It just keeps spouting up, hot and thick and choking him. He coughs out frothy mouthfuls one after the other. There’s a horrible sucking noise somewhere and panic whites everything else out in its rawest form.

The last thing Hunk sees is red.

* * *

Hunk jolts awake coughing. He’s coughing wildly but not wetly, this time it’s air and there’s no blood.

Allura is tearful and wide-eyed above him, her mouth opened in a perfectly stunned _O_. One of her tears has enough time to splash his cheek before she’s snatching him up. Someone who isn’t Allura makes an awful wailing noise in the background that twists Hunk’s heart.

Before he can ask who it was or what’s going on, she’s shoving him into a pod.

* * *

For the first time, Lance is not the person catching Hunk as he stumbles from the pod’s unceremonious release.

Allura thrusts forward and wraps her arms around Hunk like she’s scared he’ll disappear. One of her hands tenderly slides over the nape of his neck and her lips press warm to his cheek. Hunk is bewildered. He blinks slowly and hugs her back. He doesn’t know what to say.

Allura doesn’t let him go for a few minutes. Her presence is a comforting one, sturdy. But as the residual grogginess of the pod wears off, Hunk grows apprehensive. Allura is the only one here. This isn’t normal. This means something bad happened.

“Shiro?” he croaks out cautiously, dreading the worst.

Allura stiffens and pulls back to face him. She cups his cheeks in her hands, which is also a pretty weird thing for her to do, and quickly shakes her head.

“Shiro is fine! Everyone is fine, it’s just early. No one else is due up for another varga.” She smiles at him but there’s a wary glint in her gaze that Hunk does not miss. “I didn’t tell anyone you’d be getting up. I wanted a moment to fill you in before they’re all trying to jump on you at once.”

“What even happened?” Hunk frowns.

“Let’s sit,” says Allura.

She takes his hand and leads him to the table, pulling out a chair. Hunk takes a seat and she sits down next to him, her hands wringing together.

“A new weapon powered by the druids’ magic was strong enough to penetrate the castle,” she says slowly. “We destroyed it in that battle. Its nature was what Pidge described as a ‘glass cannon.’ This term is familiar with you too?”

“Yeah,” Hunk says. He wasn’t much of a gamer but he knew the concept. He’d watched Lance enough times.

“Okay,” Allura says. She bobs her head a bit and seems uncertain before she continues. “It goes without saying it caused tremendous damage. Here’s some news you’ll like to hear, we’re currently on the Balmera and will remain here until the last of the castle repairs have been completed.”

Hunk perks up at that, the knot in his stomach easing even though Allura still seems like she’s reticent about something. “That’s cool. Can’t wait to see Shay. Have you seen her yet?”

“…Yes.” Allura smiles but it’s strange, crooked on her face. “She has a surprise for you, actually.”

“She does?” Hunk mulls that over, concern about Allura’s weirdness briefly suspended while he ponders the gesture of his rock friend. “Maybe I should’ve bought her something at the Space Mall. I could cook for her I guess, but I don’t know what she eats other than bugs and I am so not bringing bugs into the kitchen. Sorry Shay, but there’s enough weird stuff in there without me adding bugs. If it’s still there, I mean, how repaired is the kitchen right now?”

“Hunk…” Allura trails off, her voice somber and her mouth folding into a frown.

“Are you going to give me the same talk Shiro did?” He tilts his head. “Make sure I can cope alright with almost dying?”

If the kitchen were repaired, that’d be a pretty good starting point. Cooking was coping. 

“No,” Allura says quietly. Her eyes flicker downward and when they meet Hunk’s again, she looks older. “There wasn’t an almost. You died.”

Hunk freezes. Allura leans in close and gently curls a hand over his wrist.

“Your heart had already stopped when Coran found you,” Allura begins in a measured tone.

She stares at him closely, gauging his reaction.

Hunk just gapes as he struggles to comprehend.

“I don’t know how long it had stopped for, but only the barest hint of warmth was left in your body.” Allura scrunches her eyes shut, her fingers squeezing gingerly. “There was enough left for me to resuscitate you, thank the stars.”

Hunk scrambles out of his chair and turns his back to her as his stomach crawls into his throat. He gives a short gag before he doubles over and spews onto the floor.

“Oh!” Allura hurries over and places a hand on his back. “Are you alright?”

“No.” Hunk swipes his sleeve across his mouth, quaking like a rabbit cornered in its den as another wave of nausea rolls over him. “No, no, just stop! Don’t tell me anything else about it, I don’t want to know! Allura, please.”

“Okay,” Allura agrees hastily. “Okay, we never have to talk about it again. I’ll tell the others not to discuss it.”

Hunk claps his hand over his mouth to fight back the urge to be sick again. Allura pats his back with a delicate touch, like she’s scared to break him. Hunk doesn’t want to have anything to do with that she just said. He wants to detach himself from the fact she ever told him at all. Something ominous slithers up his spine. An indescribable, immediate sense of _dark_ just seeps in and haunts with the threat of thoughts he doesn’t want to have.

Death is the most primal unknown. The true final frontier, Star Trek be damned. The most terrifying indiscriminate inevitability. It’s ugly and bleak and he—

Hunk vomits again, the thought completed in raw animal feeling rather than language. He shudders and Allura steers him away from his mess. She guides him back to the chair, nervously humming some gentle tune he recognizes, but cannot identify.

“You’re okay,” she promises shakily. “You’re here and you’re fine now.”

Hunk swallows and tries to squelch the impulse to check his own heartbeat. “How long was I in the pod?”

“Awhile.” Allura sits next to him again and scoots even closer this time, her leg brushing his. “The healing calibration is different than the stasis calibration. You were primarily restored by the former, though your body needed some extra time to adapt and recover from the healing process itself. You spent a couple weeks in stasis.”

“A couple weeks,” Hunk repeats nebulously, still trying to shake off the daunting implications of ‘you died.’

“Yes.” Allura takes a deep breath and lightly rests her hands on his arm. “You’ve been unconscious for nearly three months.”

Hunk pauses for a moment, letting it sink in.

“I know that must be a shock,” Allura murmurs uncomfortably. She seems to be more cautious since ‘you died’ didn’t go over all that well. “Are you alright?”

Hunk laughs. It isn’t his normal laugh. It’s strangled and off and not even a phantom of his normal belly deep, sunny laugh, but it is a laugh. He keeps laughing for a bit and then leans back in the chair, patting Allura’s shoulder.

“Nope. But I guess three months is better than ten thousand years, huh?”

Allura’s lips part, bemusement briefly crossing her face. Then she laughs too. And it’s not Allura’s normal effervescent laughter that tumbles off her tongue like popping popcorn, it is strained and frazzled and equally wrong.

But then he’s laughing again and they’re both laughing and shifting in their seats to clasp each other’s shoulders. They’re out of their depth, forehead to forehead and cracking up like loons, and this is how Shiro finds them.

Allura notices before Hunk does, choking back the last of her frantic cackling as looks to him. Hunk follows her gaze and breaks off, relief awash through him and ebbing away at his lingering discomfort.

It was one thing to be informed Shiro was okay, it’s another to see him standing there healthy and whole.

Shiro’s eyes flicker between them, lit with the spark of surprise. “Hunk.”

“Sorry,” Allura releases Hunk’s shoulders and slides away, his bangs falling back over his forehead without hers pushing them up. “I know it was a bit mean not to say anything but I wanted a moment alone with him.”

“Hey, Shiro,” Hunk greets awkwardly.

Shiro looks at him like he’s a ghost. Hunk flinches and tries not to think that he is. Then Shiro jerks himself out of his stupor and practically sprints over, Hunk finding his face smashed into his muscular chest as he’s caged in a vice of a hug.

“A bit mean? That was cruel,” Shiro admonishes Allura sharply. “You and I need to talk later.”

“That’s fair.” She stands up and gives him an apologetic smile as she winds around them. “Have your own reunion, I’m going to clean the floor.”

Hunk is too busy being squished to atone for the mess. “Shiro, you’re going to hurt me.”

“Sorry.” Shiro quickly lets go of him and takes Allura’s seat, looking Hunk up and down.

“It’s good to see you okay,” Hunk tells him, smiling thinly.

“Likewise.” Shiro rubs his hand over his face, pushing out a heavy breath as he shakes his head. His hand lowers and his expression is firm. “You’re not allowed to do that again. Ever.”

Allowed to do what? _Die?_

Hunk’s gut lurches and he shrinks in on himself. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We have to talk about it,” Shiro insists. “When it comes down to it, you have to put yourself before me. I want to make that clear right now so this never happens again. If Coran hadn't found you, you wouldn't be here right now.“

“Stop!” Hunk shouts and claps his hands over his ears, ducking his head to fix his gaze on the floor. He doesn’t want to think about it, he can’t hear about it.

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

He died, he was dead, suffocated on his own blood! Allura said he’d grown cold. What else? Did his eyes sink in like pruning grapes? Did his bowels give way? His bladder? Hunk had heard that was instant though he’d never actually seen anyone die before. Well, not anyone other than that poor prisoner that time he had only almost died, but he doubted the postmortem processes of their bodies were anything alike.

His stomach does a somersault and he feels like he’s going to be sick, but he’s not. He’s just hyperventilating. His heart is racing in his chest, hammering against the wall of his ribs. It’s painful but it reminds him he’s alive, which is a great thing to be reminded of when you’ve been told that you weren’t actually, that you were dead long enough to need a magic alien machine for nearly a fourth of a year.

Hunk yelps through his pants when he feels a touch on his cheek, snapping up like he’s been stung. Shiro pulls back and raises his hands, palms to Hunk and fingers fanned placatingly. Hunk has no idea when Allura came back but she’s to his side. She takes a halting step back, her own hands fluttering.

“You’re safe,” Shiro assures Hunk, his voice dulcet. “It’s alright. Try to breathe with me, okay?”

Hunk slowly moves his hands away from his ears and nods warily. He watches the softer, paced inhales and exhales of Shiro’s breathing and tries to match. Shiro nods him along and puts his flesh hand over Hunk’s, gently rolling his thumb in encouragement. His heartbeat steadies. His breaths slowly even out.

“Good,” Shiro murmurs. “That’s better.”

It’s supposed to be reassuring and it, but for some reason Hunk’s set off crying, his breaths all quick and choppy again anyway. He throws himself into Shiro, nearly sending them both toppling. Shiro takes him in stride and stands up, straightening Hunk with him. Hunk sobs into his chest and Shiro protectively pulls him closer.

“I’m sorry,” Hunk blubbers, embarrassment burning his cheeks as the tears spill without restraint. Shiro softly shushes him and sighs into his hair.

“It’s alright,” he soothes. “I got you.”

Hunk clings to him until the sobs run their course. He steps back and brushes the lingering tears out of his lashes with his sleeve, catching a whiff of something sour. Right. He should’ve made sure to use the sleeve he hadn’t wiped vomit off his mouth with.

Allura was silent as a shadow the entire time. Hunk had thought she left, but when he lifts his head she’s holding out a water pouch. He accepts it and gratefully drinks.

“Better?” Shiro asks.

Hunk slow nods. “What time is it? I mean, is everybody else getting up soon? I don’t think I want them to see me like this. I should go back to my room.”

“It’s occupied at the moment,” Allura says, glancing to Shiro.

“Lance?” Hunk guesses.

They both hesitate and some of Hunk’s panic begins to rekindle. Apparently it’s obvious because Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder and Allura briskly folds hers together, in front of her dress in that princess-y kind of way.

“Nothing is wrong,” she says. “Shay’s been staying in there, that’s all.”

“Why would Shay…” Then the puzzle pieces fall into place. Voltron. He’s been out for almost three months. They’ve had to have needed Voltron in that time. “Shay’s the yellow paladin.”

“You’re the yellow paladin,” Shiro says quickly. “Shay has been your substitute.”

“You guys took my advice,” Hunk deduces, a fragile grin stretching his lips. “I knew she could do it.”

“You were correct. She’s not the smoothest pilot but she does have an affinity with the Yellow Lion. She wanted to tell you herself,” Allura says with a hint of guilt and possibly amusement. “She was really excited to tell you about being in the sky. Apparently you introduced her to it?”

“Crazy, right? But yeah.” Warmth bubbles in Hunk at the thought. He relaxes some more and sits back down, taking another sip of water. “I guess I’ve missed a lot. Prepare me, okay? What’s the biggest thing I’ve missed?”

“Probably how much you’ve been missed,” Coran answers as he enters the room. “You can have the kitchen all to yourself. Nothing I make is ever good enough for those humans.”

“So we have a kitchen then? Good news.”

Coran smiles and to Hunk’s surprise, trots over and gathers him up in his arms. “You gave us quite the fright,” he scolds.

“Let’s not talk about that,” Shiro says quickly, Allura making a loud note of agreement in her throat.

“Oh.” Coran drops it without protest and Hunk gives him a squeeze before he lets go. “Right then, I suppose it’s most productive to focus on the present. Is there anything I can make you before the kitchen’s yours again, Hunk?”

“I’m up for a classic bowl of goo.” Hunk rests his elbow on the table and props his chin in his hand.

“Coming right up.” Coran snaps his fingers and slips from the room.

Allura and Shiro sit back down and start filling him in on things he’s missed. They went to the Balmera shortly after the fight. That glass cannon of a druid weapon hasn’t made a reappearance since, thankfully. Shay’s been piloting the Yellow Lion for about two months. She’s not very good at landing but she catches on to the cues Yellow wants her to take rather quickly. They liberated another work camp on a large moon and naturally Hunk asks about Pidge’s family, but they’re still MIA. The Galra had attempted to reconquer the Olkari and Voltron helped push them back. That was Shay’s first battle in Voltron and she’d done alright.

Hunk is halfway done with his bowl of goo when the rest of the paladins pour into the room. They all halt when they see him, Lance crowing high in his throat. Pidge was still half-asleep piggybacking on Shay but the second she sees Hunk is there, her eyes snap wide open and she clambers off of her. She takes off like a marathon runner, tearing for Hunk. Lance joins the race and Hunk braces himself for impact.

Keith interferes, loping forward to seize Lance by his hood and Pidge by her collar, yanking them back.

“Are you guys trying to kill him again?” he snaps. “Don’t attack him like that!”

“I can take it.” Hunk can't suppress a shiver at the wording as he pushes his chair back. He focuses on his friends to fight back the turbulent emotion that threatens to rise and stands with his arms open. “It's a free for all. Go ahead and tackle me too, Keith.”

But Shay takes advantage of the squabble to bound over herself. “Hunk!”

She flings her arms around his middle and picks him up, spinning him in a giddy circle. Hunk returns the embrace as she sets him back down, laughing happily.

“Shay! My headband looks good on you.”

Shay positively beams at the compliment, her stubby tail perking up. She’s got his headband tied in a bow around one of her ear appendages.

“Lance gave it to me,” she chirps, nuzzling her cheek against his. The unusual texture of her skin is pleasant and cool as clay against his flesh. “It helped remind me you were going to be okay. You looked so still in the pod. It was terrible! It is a true relief to see you lifelike again!”

Lance himself hugs Hunk from behind, lanky arms encircling Hunk’s neck as he buries his face between his shoulder blades. Pidge fights her way in there, small enough to squeeze between him and Shay. Both of them cry. Lance audibly sniffles, and Pidge is silent, but he feels the dampness of her tears and snot for the second time in his life.

Shay doesn’t mind sharing him. She loosens her big arms and shifts to the side to allow Keith some of the action. This is more surprising than anything. Keith will allow Hunk’s hugs. Keith has been getting better at returning Hunk’s hugs. But Keith does not give Hunk hugs and yet here he is, pushing his face into Hunk’s shoulder and snaking an arm under Shay’s so he can clutch at his under-suit.

“Wow,” Hunk declares. “This is the biggest hug huddle I have ever experienced.”

“I am never letting you go again,” Lance mumbles. “Ever.”

Hunk untangles an arm to reach back and awkwardly pat his head. “I know. You okay, buddy?”

“Now.” Lance squeezes harder.

Hunk pats Pidge’s head as well, ruffling her hair. She doesn’t say a word but her grip on him is unbreakable.

“Your lion missed you too,” Shay tells him, her ears wiggling. “I have piloted him in your stead!”

“Yeah?” Hunk asks eagerly, unable to keep from playing along when that look on her face just about melts him like a marshmallow.

“Yes!” She cheerfully bobs her head and removes herself from the hug, giving the other paladins more room to squeeze him as she bounces up and down. “I flew in the sky! Everyone has taught me much and your lion was also so patient with me! I will be happy to return him to you, but the experience was exhilarating! I never could have imagined traveling through the stars like that. Fighting for peace was much fulfilling as well.”

“That's great. I’m glad you were here to pick up my slack,” Hunk says. “Thanks.”

Lance must get tired of standing. He wiggles his way up Hunk’s back and wraps his legs around his waist, both Keith and Pidge grunting in annoyance when they need to shift accordingly.

“Shay picked up your Voltron slack,” Keith mutters. “But you need to pick up your Hunk slack.”

“My Hunk slack?”

“Yeah,” Pidge mutters, her voice quavery.

“I have first Hunk rights,” Lance says, lifting his head.

“No,” Pidge and Keith reply in unison.

“Yes,” Lance says. “We were roommates at the Garrison, that means I have roommate rights.”

“Excuse you,” Pidge scoffs. “I have space technology to configure and advancements to make with him. The productivity of our shared genius overrules your stupid roommate rights.”

“Hunk and I traveled the deadly stomach of a disgusting space worm together,” Keith says flatly, lifting his head to rest his chin atop Hunk’s shoulder. “That overrules everything.”

“I do not wish to involve myself in conflict,” Shay says softly. “But I only think it is fair that my own Hunk rights take precedence since I have been flying his lion and undertaking his duties.”

“Okay, I am right here,” Hunk reminds them, hoping to curb the genuine competition he senses beneath the surface. “And there’s enough of me to go around. How about we all just watch a movie or something? Is that fair?”

“It is,” Shiro answers collectively, walking over with his arms folded across his chest and an impish grin on his mouth. “But after that, I have first Hunk rights. As the the head of Voltron, my Hunk rights outrank yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotta people carrying people in this one. But alright, I do think Hunk could carry Shiro since he held up Shay in canon. I am positive Shay weighs more than Shiro does because she's a sentient boulder person. Also, I think it goes without saying Shay could pick up Hunk too since she and her bro moved a spacecraft with minimal effort. 
> 
> And on that note, this entire fic was partly motivated by me liking to play with the idea of paladin Shay. Mostly motivated by the lack of Hunk whump in earnest but paladin Shay, man. That'd be cool. And with that I will probably never write Voltron again.


End file.
